Dredging up old 9/11 questions: The prescient film "Executive Decision"

[CookingWithGas]

I suspect that I am several years late with this question, so I will cease and desist if you point me to a discussion on this. I will also yield to the mods if this is more appropriate for GD.

I just happened to turn on the TV this weekend and turned on a movie that, amazingly, I had never heard of before. In it, Islamic extremist terrorists hijack a plane which they have equipped with bomb with the intent of blowing it up (with themselves in it) in Washington, D.C., spreading enough nerve gas to take out the entire eastern seaboard.

There are several important elements to this movie:

1. Terrorists hijack a plane (albeit with automatic weapons rather than box knives)
2. The terrorists are led by a man who knows this is a suicide mission but his followers are not aware of this
3. At least one of the hijackers is a pilot (though he never flies the plane)
4. The plane is being turned into a weapon

I can't believe that the reigning administrations did not take advantage of the imaginations of filmmakers when doing risk management for things like this. How could a filmmaker come up with this but the administration did not take the idea seriously as something that should be defended against? At least one member of the Bush administration implied that there's no way you could have seen 9/11 coming.

Here are the questions:

Has there been any acknowledgement by the Bush or Clinton administrations in answer to a charge similar to mine, that filmmakers saw it coming but they missed it?

Is there any indication that Al Qaeda was actually inspired by this film?

(Am I being too much of a Monday-morning quarterback here?)

[Loach]

Equating that film with 911 is a big stretch. The vague term "using a plane as a weapon" is the only thing similar. The plot is way off. In contrast Tom Clancy wrote about someone crashing a 747 into the Capital Building in 1994. There was another book around the same time that had a 747 aimed at the White House but it was shot down on The Mall. I think it was from Dale Brown.

[Cowboy8467]

I've read the 9/11 commission report in addition to a couple of other books about 9/11 in general and there is no question that people in both the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations knew that there was at least a possibility that planes could be used as weapons.

They might not have thought it very likely, but it's not as if it hadn't occurred to them at all.

[Gus Gusterson]

Are you saying that we should have a government agency that gathers all of the evil plots that have ever been conceived in works of fiction and determines whether and how to defend against them?

You've got the benefit of hindsight. If you had seen the movie before 9/11, you probably would have said, "That's unrealistic. Hijackers don't want to crash the planes." Should our intelligence agencies have done a better job of responding to the information they had about bin Laden's plans? Definitely. Should they have thought, "Well, I saw that happen in a movie once, so it's a valid threat?" Definitely not. They shouldn't have dismissed the threat, but not because something vaguely similar had happened in a movie once. Otherwise, they should have also been preparing for the date when SkyNet was going to become sentient.

[kunilou]

And check out the 1977 movie Black Sunday where terrorists hijack the Goodyear Blimp to attack the Super Bowl. Not quite the same as crashing a plane into a building, but a similar idea.

As for defending against it, long before 9/11 there were rumors of anti-aircraft missles on the roof of the White House to defend against just such an attack. The government has never confirmed or denied those rumors, but they've been floating around for years.

[Elendil's Heir]

I've read the 9/11 commission report in addition to a couple of other books about 9/11 in general and there is no question that people in both the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations knew that there was at least a possibility that planes could be used as weapons.

They might not have thought it very likely, but it's not as if it hadn't occurred to them at all.

This has always been about what I thought. Condi Rice rightly took some heat when she said in post-9/11 Congressional testimony something like "No one could have anticipated planes being used as weapons," but that's not to say the entire government ought to have been mobilized over an up-to-then-fictional threat.

Incidentally, the book Six Days of the Condor and the movie Three Days of the Condor both feature a small CIA branch office that analyzes spy and mystery novels for useful data, techniques and speculation.

[Smeghead]

There are fighters that fly circles over Washington DC 24/7.

[jayjay]

Which of course means that Condi was lying and ass-covering when she said that nobody could have ever imagined that the terrorists would use planes as weapons.

[Elendil's Heir]

Also reminded me of the X-Files spinoff series The Lone Gunmen. From the Wiki article on the series:

Foreshadowing a number of conspiracy theories in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the plot of the March 4, 2001 pilot episode of the series depicts a secret U.S. government agency plotting to hijack a domestic commercial Boeing 727 originally heading for Boston from New York City but diverted it to crash into the World Trade Center via remote control for the purpose of increasing the military defense budget and blaming the attack on foreign "tin-pot dictators" who are "begging to be smart-bombed."

[gonzomax]

Which of course means that Condi was lying and ass-covering when she said that nobody could have ever imagined that the terrorists would use planes as weapons.

The 911 timeline shows several countries told them what was possible. Condi just lied. There is plenty of evidence. She has escaped into the land of big money.

[jtgain]

I think that the premise in the OP is silly. If aliens invade tomorrow in 15 mile wide spaceships, should be blame Obama for not watching Independence Day more carefully?

[Loach]

I think that the premise in the OP is silly. If aliens invade tomorrow in 15 mile wide spaceships, should be blame Obama for not watching Independence Day more carefully?

No I would blame us for not voting in an old military pilot.

[Sailboat]

The whole concept wasn't original with the film (Executive Decision, not Independence Day) -- it dates back at least to February 22, 1974 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Byck).

IIRC the introspection after 9/11 showed that various gov't agencies were aware of the potential for a fuel-filled jetliner to be turned into a weapon of mass destruction. They just didn't put all the clues together about this particular plot.

[RiverRunner]

The 911 timeline shows several countries told them what was possible.

Yeah? Big deal. On this board, we could come up with scads of terrorist plots that are "possible." Doesn't mean they are all probable enough to go through the time, expense, and trauma of protecting against all of them.


RR

[CookingWithGas]

I think that the premise in the OP is silly. If aliens invade tomorrow in 15 mile wide spaceships, should be blame Obama for not watching Independence Day more carefully?There was a credible threat, as described by Rice herself in Congressional testimony (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/08/rice.transcript/):The terrorist threat to our nation did not emerge on September 11, 2001. Long before that day, radical, freedom-hating terrorists declared war on America and on the civilized world. The attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, the rise of al Qaeda and the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the attacks on American installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the East Africa embassy bombings of 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, these and other atrocities were part of a sustained, systematic campaign to spread devastation and chaos and to murder innocent Americans.
Airplane hijackings are hardly unthinkable. Rice further said:The briefing item reviewed past intelligence reporting, mostly dating from the 1990s, regarding possible al Qaeda plans to attack inside the United States. It referred to uncorroborated reporting that from 1998 that terrorists might attempt to hijack a U.S. aircraft in an attempt to blackmail the government into releasing U.S.-held terrorists who had participated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. This briefing item was not prompted by any specific threat information. And it did not raise the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as missiles.The FAA issued at least five Civil Aviation Security Information Circulars to all U.S. airlines and airport security personnel, including specific warnings about the possibility of hijackings.

Comparing 9/11 to alien attacks is what is silly.

Let me be clear. I am not claiming that someone should have said, "Hey they did it in a movie so it's going to happen tomorrow." Or that the specific attack should have been or even could have been predicted at all. But at that time the impression I got was the administration was denying that anybody could have imagined such a thing was even possible. I do expect the experts to say, "You know, if a writer can think of it, so can Al Qaeda. Is it really feasible? And if so, what can we do about it?"

[Damfino]

Rick Rescorla (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla), security chief at Morgan Stanley at WTC is credited with foreseeing such an attack and making evacuation plans which led to saving all but six of the 2700 Morgan Stanley employees in the building. He, along with three other security staff, were active in evacuating the employees and sadly amongst the dead.

The British novelist Dennis Wheatley was given a post as Wing Commander in the RAF and employed by the Joint Planning Staff of the UK to dream up ways of defeating a German invasion. These papers, collected in his book "Stranger Than Fiction" are fascinating in retrospect, some feasible, some fantastic, all highly ingenious. He was also involved in planning the Normandy invasion.

[palindromemordnilap]

The U.S. actually does have a plan to thwart planes being used as weapons. It is called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD (yes I realize the acronym doesn't line up with the name). Despite Bush Admin claims that NORAD's mission on 9/11 was to look outward at overseas attacks only, in fact NORAD's primary mission has always been Air Sovereignty, protecting the airspace within the U.S.

The real question is why jets were either not scrambled or unable to locate planes between 8:19 ET when a transmission from Flight 11 said it was being hijacked to 9:47 ET when the third plane hit the Pentagon (or even 10:03 ET when Flight 93 reportedly crashed).

Supposedly Flight 11 could not be found because its transponder was turned off, and DC was left unprotected because the jet pilots thought the threat was from overseas and therefore flew over the ocean to intercept. There were F-15s in a holding pattern over Long Island when Flight 175 struck at 9:03. The FAA and NORAD had an open line discussing Flights 77 and 93 beginning at 9:24. Reagan International Airport reported the visual approach of 77 at least five minutes before it hit the Pentagon.

You can't really blame Bush or Clinton for not realizing that the world's most expensive and advanced air defense system would be incompetent and utterly useless in a crisis. I'm being charitable in assuming mere incompetence rather than a sinister motive.

[anson2995]

Which of course means that Condi was lying and ass-covering when she said that nobody could have ever imagined that the terrorists would use planes as weapons.

This is an important point, and I'd like to amplify it without straying into GD territory because it bears directly on the OP's question.

The US intelligence/security community was well aware that terrorists had plans to hijack planes and crash them into things. Such a plan was thwarted in 1995 -- part of the Bojinka plot. There's a paper trail of declassified documents that show this quite clealry.

In her 911 Commission testimony -- in response to the second question asked to her -- Rice said "To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, this kind of analysis about the use of airplanes as weapons actually was never briefed to us." We now know this was not true. The briefing memo that Richard Clarke, the anti-terrorism czar, gave her on 1/25/2001 was later declassified, and in a list of past Al Qaeda attacks it mentioned the Bojinka plot. Rice's answer to that particular question, and others (such as whether she had been informed that Al Qaeda cells were in the US) suggest that she either did not read this memo or did not understand it.

One might conclude that Rice was lying, but what's more frightening is the possibility that she was telling the truth that *she* - the national security advisor - was unaware of the threat.

There's a whole GD thread that could spring from this point, and frankly I'm not interested in that. I just want to make sure to point out that the idea of planes being used as weapons wasn't just known as a theoretical threat, but as an actual threat that was once stopped.

[commasense]

There are fighters that fly circles over Washington DC 24/7.Got a cite for this? Andrews Air Force Base (http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=Andrews+Air+Force+Base&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=KNP3SZm3OIWQyQWD1JBK&ll=38.850403,-76.959572&spn=0.170318,0.30899&t=h&z=12&iwloc=A)is just outside of the city, and can scramble F-16s on very short notice. I live not far from there, and I've never heard of them keeping fighters aloft for extended periods, other than in extreme situations (immediately after 9/11, for instance). It seems that it would not only be extremely wasteful of all sorts of resources, but would also play havoc with operations at the three major airports in the region.

[Loach]

Let me be clear. I am not claiming that someone should have said, "Hey they did it in a movie so it's going to happen tomorrow." Or that the specific attack should have been or even could have been predicted at all. But at that time the impression I got was the administration was denying that anybody could have imagined such a thing was even possible. I do expect the experts to say, "You know, if a writer can think of it, so can Al Qaeda. Is it really feasible? And if so, what can we do about it?"

But you are equating it to the movie Executive Decision. The plot is so unlikely that it is easily dismissed. It is not even close to what happened on 911. I and others have given you better examples of fictional works that had similar plots. It was never inconceivable that a plane could be used as a weapon. But up to that point they concentrated on keeping weapons off the planes. They fact that people could take over a plane with only box cutters and threats of other weapons was unlikely. The fact that 4 hijackings would be coordinated at the same time was not likely. There is no way I would ever label Executive Decision as prescient.

[dotchan]

Before the Titanic went down, there was an eerily prescient novel about a similarly sized ship with inadequate lifeboats hitting an iceberg. But nobody believed the Titanic itself would meet such disaster.

Why, God Himself couldn't sink such a mighty vessel! :smack:

...yeah.

[jayjay]

Before the Titanic went down, there was an eerily prescient novel about a similarly sized ship with inadequate lifeboats hitting an iceberg. But nobody believed the Titanic itself would meet such disaster.

Why, God Himself couldn't sink such a mighty vessel! :smack:

...yeah.

Very eerily. The ship in the novel was named the Titan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futility,_or_the_Wreck_of_the_Titan).

[CookingWithGas]

It was never inconceivable that a plane could be used as a weapon.If the administrations took that possibility seriously, then my underlying premise is wrong. My impressions to this point based on media reports were that it was not taken seriously, although I have not done serious research on the matter, as perhaps some above posters have done.

[Dissonance]

You don't need to look to works of fiction. It's not as if nobody ever used a stolen plane to attack DC. Cessna attack on the White House anyone? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Eugene_Corder)

[Sailboat]

Got a cite for this? Andrews Air Force Base (http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=Andrews+Air+Force+Base&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=KNP3SZm3OIWQyQWD1JBK&ll=38.850403,-76.959572&spn=0.170318,0.30899&t=h&z=12&iwloc=A)is just outside of the city, and can scramble F-16s on very short notice. I live not far from there, and I've never heard of them keeping fighters aloft for extended periods, other than in extreme situations (immediately after 9/11, for instance). It seems that it would not only be extremely wasteful of all sorts of resources, but would also play havoc with operations at the three major airports in the region.

I second commasense's doubt of this claim. I live west of DC but work in the city (although I did not work in the city on 9/11).

When 9/11 occurred, we were very aware of the presence of fighter jets in the sky suddenly, because it was so novel. We hardly ever see them now -- I have a hard time believing we're unconsciously overlooking them. I don't believe fighters patrol over DC routinely outside of Iron Eagle remakes.

[bengangmo]

Just wanted to add that Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachmann also imagined the possibility of a plane being used as a weapon in "The Running Man" - where the protagonist flies a plane into an office tower.

Wilbur Smith also wrote about a plot to use a DC3 (?) to either drop poison into a reservoir or posion gass over a crowd (I think poison gas over a crowd, but its a LONG time since I read the story)

[Little Nemo]

If you want to establish some fictional precedents, watch some West Wing dvd's. In the episode, In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, Part I, that was broadcast on October 4, 2000, Jed Bartlet got a briefing from his National Security Advisor about a possible terrorist attack by "bin Laden" against the United States.

[muttrox]

Has there been any acknowledgement by the Bush or Clinton administrations in answer to a charge similar to mine, that filmmakers saw it coming but they missed it?

They had considered the possibility, but thought it was a fair price to kill Steven Seagal.

[gonzomax]

Yeah? Big deal. On this board, we could come up with scads of terrorist plots that are "possible." Doesn't mean they are all probable enough to go through the time, expense, and trauma of protecting against all of them.


RR

Governments directly told them they had info of terrorists who would fly planes into buildings in America. It was not something vague. They were both friendly and unfriendly countries who relayed the info.

[Elendil's Heir]

...Incidentally, the book Six Days of the Condor and the movie Three Days of the Condor both feature a small CIA branch office that analyzes spy and mystery novels for useful data, techniques and speculation.

Somewhat similarly: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052104379.html

[Quartz]

One might conclude that Rice was lying, but what's more frightening is the possibility that she was telling the truth that *she* - the national security advisor - was unaware of the threat.

When faced with a choice between malice, ignorance, and incompetence, the latter two win most of the time.

[redshift]

Hey, if we actually believed Executive Decision, we'd have Steven Segal and Kurt Russell on a F-117 with an oversized vacuum cleaner ready to take down any stray airplanes at a moment's notice.

[Simplicio]

If you want to establish some fictional precedents, watch some West Wing dvd's. In the episode, In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, Part I, that was broadcast on October 4, 2000, Jed Bartlet got a briefing from his National Security Advisor about a possible terrorist attack by "bin Laden" against the United States.

Is this a woosh? Bin Ladin had already been implicated in several attacks on the US by 2000, predicting that he'd do so again is hardly an out there guess. He was even on the FBI's ten most wanted list at the time, IIRC.

[anson2995]

Is this a woosh? Bin Ladin had already been implicated in several attacks on the US by 2000, predicting that he'd do so again is hardly an out there guess. He was even on the FBI's ten most wanted list at the time, IIRC.

Bin laden was added to the "10 most wanted" list in June of 1999, in connection with the August 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa.

He wasn't well known to the general public before that, but he wasn't exactly flying under the radar. The NY Times had done a full-length story on Bin Laden by 1996, and his name appeared in news stories about Islamic militants a few years before that.

[Little Nemo]

Is this a woosh? Bin Ladin had already been implicated in several attacks on the US by 2000, predicting that he'd do so again is hardly an out there guess. He was even on the FBI's ten most wanted list at the time, IIRC.I didn't think they had just coincidentally made up the name. But this is a thread about al Qaeda references in fiction that were made before 9/11.

[Der Trihs]

Equating that film with 911 is a big stretch. The vague term "using a plane as a weapon" is the only thing similar. The plot is way off. In contrast Tom Clancy wrote about someone crashing a 747 into the Capital Building in 1994. Debt of Honor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor).

[anson2995]

I didn't think they had just coincidentally made up the name. But this is a thread about al Qaeda references in fiction that were made before 9/11.

No it's not. The OP asked whether Al Qaeda was inspired by the events of a 1996 film, and more particularly, whether the fact that such an attack was imagined in fiction meant that it should havebeen imagined as a real threat.

There's no way to answer the first for sure, and I think we've established that lots of folks in the intelligence/security community had conceived of the threat.